Monsanto Gives Helmets to Better Their Bicycle Business

Perhaps you’ve run across this image over the last week. It’s a fairly standard release form from a company, in this case Monsanto Hawaii. This letter went home with students from an elementary school on the North Shore of Oahu. It was posted in an online group with the following caption:

Monsanto is buying our schools. This came home with my kids from Waialua Elementary School on 8/12/2015

Last year Waialua Elementary installed a plaque at the entrance of the school thanking Monsanto. Then they had children thanking Monsanto at last years may Day celebration. So far this year there have been articles in the local paper about Monsanto in the school. Now they want to use our kids in advertising. WTF!! We need to get them out of Hawaii

Plaque at the Entrance of the School

Yes, how dare the school teach these children to say thank you? It’s shocking. First, Monsanto helps clean up the school grounds, then they throw a party, and now, this evil company wants to come in and give the children bike helmets?! Gasp. The horrors. Are the other 3 companies listed on that thank you plaque getting angry letters from parents as well? How dare Ace Hardware donate time and money to the school? They’re obviously trying to win children over to Big Home Improvements! Shame on Monsanto Hawaii for having a strong volunteer program and supporting their community.

Currently, Oahu employees are helping with a bike safety day at Waialua Elementary where they will give out bike helmets to the kids and sponsor a poster design contest. The winner will receive a new set of wheels in September. Monsanto wants to use a few photos in the company newsletter, and in order to do so, they sent out the above form. No one has to sign it, it is completely voluntary. The kids get a helmet and can enter the contest even if they don’t have a signed form. This information didn’t stop the moral outrage from rolling across the internet. The comments range from claims of branding of children to pedophilia. Unbelievable.

This story was blown so far out of proportion that the local news even did a piece on it which can be found here.

This little gem of a screen shot (above) came out of a Kauai group, not that the island of Kauai even has a Monsanto location, but apparently that doesn’t stop these residents from getting their panties in a bunch. Here, this parent would rather burn a helmet from a seed company than let his child have it. Brain damage is certainly preferable to wearing something from Monsanto. Quality parenting right there. Perhaps if it came with a tin foil lining he might be more inclined to accept the gift.

In other news of corporations in our schools, EcoWatch recently ran a similar article. This was a story of another company that is of similar size (in terms of revenue) to Monsanto. It has been in the news lately for some questionable, if not downright unethical business practices. I’ll give you a hint, it’s a company that was recently called out for selling asparagus water and cheating their customers.

In the article, EcoWatch didn’t lament the involvement of a corporation in a school, it applauded it. A non-profit called Turning Green, funded by the likes of

has come into two schools in the Marin County School District to turn their cafeterias all GMO-free and organic. Turning Green partnered with another one of their sponsors, Whole Foods, to help put on this program. From the EcoWatch article:

“Meals are accompanied by a garden and nutrition curriculum that teaches students about where their food comes from, how it’s grown and why it’s good for them.”

Not a bit of indoctrination about the supposed superiority of organic happening in those classrooms, right? Despite the stamp of approval on GMO foods from every respected scientific organization around, despite a total lack of evidence that organic food is safer or healthier, we have this going on in our classrooms.

Better school lunches for kids is a laudable goal. We’ve all seen those photos floating around of lackluster meals, but is it worth getting on board with this particular program? Why not teach kids that eating fresh fruits and vegetables, regardless of production method, is better than eating a deep fried twinkie? Why mislead them with this “organic is better” tripe?

Let’s take a moment to review what we’ve learned here.

It’s OK for Whole Foods to come into a school, give support to a program that will indoctrinate children into the idea that only organic, GMO-free foods are safe and healthy, which will eventually further the sale of their own products.

It’s not OK for Monsanto to come into a school, give support to a bike safety program that will indoctrinate children into the idea of wearing helmets, which will eventually further the sale of their own… oh wait. They don’t sell bikes.

What we have here is cherry picked outrage. Disgust at corporate involvement in our schools abounds, but only if the corporation is named Monsanto.

If nothing else, I now have a sneaking suspicion what happened to those $6 bottles of asparagus water. Bottoms up kids!